The world was aching. There
was an emptiness in people’s hearts and no one could remember a time when it
hadn’t been so. The Tasks had been invented over 500 years ago, according to the
scribes, but as much as they tried, no one could do them all. Because of that,
the Gate remained closed.

The Gate stood on top of a
hill at the edge of the Capital. It reached up nearly to the clouds, and it was
set into an equally high Wall, which stretched all the way around the world. No
one had ever been to the top of the Wall, although on certain clear nights, you
could see a warm, amber light glowing above it. It was this glow that caused
such a longing in the people, for somehow they knew that God dwelled on the
other side. But He was hopelessly out of reach.

***

“Father?” asked the young
girl, “did you ever try to open the Gate?”

They had finished their
prayers and the father was getting ready to blow the candle out.

“Many times,” he said. “I
once got to the 27th Task, but then I made a mistake and had to start all over.
I never got that far again.”

“How many Tasks are there?”
asked the girl.

“No one knows. The best
anyone has ever done is to get to number 128. That took over 7 hours.”

“Why can’t the priests
memorize the Tasks so they can keep going farther until they make it to the
end?”

The father smiled at the
sharp intelligence of his daughter. “It would be wonderful if they could do
that,” he answered. “But the Tasks are different each time. And so far, everyone
has fallen short. So the Gate remains closed.”

“Why do they keep trying?”
asked the girl.

“Because to not try is to
give up hope. And living without hope would be just too sad. You’re very young
and already you know that. Remember how sad you were when your mother died?”

The girl nodded.

“Things like that happen
every day. To everybody. The Holy Writings tell us that if we can make ourselves
worthy enough to get through the Gate then we will be with God, and he will wipe
away every tear.”

As if in answer to her
father’s words, the girl began to cry. “But what if the Gate never opens at
all?”

The father gathered up the
girl in his arms and rocked her softly. “The priests tell us that someday a hero
will come. He will be able to achieve every Task. And then the Gate will open.”

The little girl looked up.
“When will this hero come?”

“No one knows. But if we
pray very hard, maybe we can make him come sooner.”

“Then I’ll pray all night
long,” said the girl. And indeed she tried, but like most little girls, she fell
asleep before the moon was high.

****

The excitement began a week
later. The whole Capital was talking about the stranger who had come to town and
climbed the hill. He still hadn’t come back down. Someone went up to see what he
was doing and found him going through Tasks like no other. There were whispers
that maybe this could be the one, the long expected hero.

The father and daughter made
their way up the hill. They found hundreds of people near the Gate. The father,
being very tall, was able to see over the crowd. He lifted his daughter onto his
shoulders.

They saw the stranger in
front of the Wall. He wasn’t much to look at and he had a thin voice that didn’t
command much power. But he was meeting each challenge from the wall. Each time
he finished one Task, writing would appear in the marble of the Gate,
instructing him on what to do next. The father remembered his own tries with the
Tasks and felt guilty all over again at his failure. But the stranger wasn’t
failing.

“How long has he been here?”
asked the father to a woman standing beside him.

“Three days,” she answered,
and the father felt his heart race. Was this unassuming stranger really the one?

“He looks very tired,” said
the daughter from her perch on her father’s shoulders. And indeed, the stranger
looked exhausted. He was doing some kind of purification Task with a thorn bush.
His hands were bleeding.

‘Three days,’ thought the
father. ‘This is so much longer than anyone has ever gone and still the Gate
remains closed. How much more can there be?’

As dusk came on, it began to
rain. The people turned away and headed down the hill into town, hoping against
hope that the stranger would somehow be able to finish all the Tasks.

****

Morning broke clear and
bright. The father and daughter ascended the hill, along with many others, to
check on the stranger. They found him still at his work, although clearly at the
end of his rope. He could barely lift his feet off the ground. But still he
gathered plants for purification and recited verses. Occasionally he would
stumble and fall, but he always pushed himself to his feet again, however
slowly. His hands and feet were both dripping blood, leaving small red spots in
the dirt. The people wanted to give him strength, to cheer him on, but they were
afraid to even whisper because that might break his concentration. They kept a
close eye on the Gate, however, hoping that at any moment it would creak open.

The stranger
recited one more Holy verse in a weak, raspy voice. The words on the wall
changed again. Three words appeared in very large letters, large enough for the
whole crowd to read.

THE FINAL TASK

A gasp rose from the crowd.
The three words faded. They were replaced by just one word - in letters
stretching up and out of sight. It was three letters long, and blood red.

DIE

Someone began to cry.
Someone else said it must be a mistake.

The stranger staggered. He
put his hands on his hips and straightened up. He turned to the crowd. He was
clearly having trouble breathing. He raised his arms and blood dripped from his
hands. He took a deep breath, and with one last, shuddering effort, he managed
to shout out two final words in a raspy voice.

“For you.”

The stranger collapsed to
the ground and was still.

No one moved for a long
moment. A doctor pushed his way through the crowd and bent over the stranger. He
took the man’s pulse. He looked up and shook his head.

“It said it was the Final
Task,” someone cried.

“Did he accomplish it?”
someone else asked.

Everyone looked toward the
Gate. The awful, blood red word had faded. But the Gate didn’t open. Someone ran
up and pushed on it but it held fast. A woman pounded her fist on the marble,
tears rolling down her cheeks. But it was no use.

“All for nothing,” someone
said. “The Gates were never meant to open at all.”

As night fell, the people
made their hopeless way down the long, long hill, and finally fell asleep in a
world of mourning.

****

Three days later the
daughter woke early. The city was quiet and still in shock. Even though she
wasn’t supposed to go outside on her own, the girl slipped from her house and
made her way up the hill. Something drew her on. As the sun rose behind her, she
approached the massive Wall.

The girl’s eyes grew wide
for there was a gap in the Wall where the Gate used to be. Soft, amber light
shone through from the other side. The girl could feel a warmth, an
indescribable love come over her. Standing near the opening was the stranger,
smiling as bright as the sun. He was no longer disheveled, no longer beaten
down.

And he was no longer dead.

The girl was so stunned that
she did the only thing she could think of. She ran back down the hill as fast as
she could and woke her father.

Ten minutes later the father
and daughter approached the Wall. The father saw the stranger, now alive again,
and he fell to his knees. He too felt the warmth and love radiating from the
other side. He felt a touch on his shoulder.

“Stand and enter,” said the
stranger, who had approached the father and was now standing in front of him.

The father got to his feet,
shaking. “But the Tasks,” he sputtered. “How can I do what you did?”

The stranger put both hands
on the man’s shoulders. “The Tasks are finished,” he said. “I’ve done them all.
For all time. For you.”

The father wiped at his
eyes. “What must I do then?”

“Simply enter,” came the
reply.

It was almost too much to
believe. After a lifetime of failure, he was being asked to simply walk forward.
With a feeling of unspeakable joy, the father took his daughter’s hand and they
both did just that, moving into the incredible Light on the other side of the
Wall.